BUFFALO, N.Y. -- If anyone thought the Buffalo Sabres were going to go away after losing Games 2 and 3, they need to reconsider.

The Sabres may not have the talent that the Flyers have, but they are scrappy, they are determined. And most importantly...

They have Ryan Miller.

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For the second time in this series, Miller made one Sabres goal stand up as Buffalo won Game 4 1-0 and evened the best-of-seven Eastern Conference Quarterfinals with the Flyers at 2-2.

Game 5 is back at the Wells Fargo Center Friday.

This series has been about two styles of play -- the one employed by the Flyers that is based in defensive posture and creating offense off of it and the one Buffalo likes to use.

"It seems like some of their games seem to feel that a street fight is what gives them the best chance," Sean O'Donnell said. "That's what the playoffs are sometimes. You can get a lot of pretend toughness out there because there is no fighting.

"They seem to want to get in some shots and intimidation and for whatever reason, they feel they can intimidate us and out-physical us."

And now there's some deep-seeded hatred between these two teams with what amounts to a best-of-three remaining to see who moves on and who goes home for the summer.

"The more you play against a team the less you like them," Danny Briere said. "It's a good series. These guys are battling hard just like we are. We never thought it was going to be an easy series from the get go. We put ourselves in a good position all year to have home ice advantage and hopefully we can take advantage of it."

The Flyers also knew the Sabres were going to come out hard in the first period, so they seemed to sit back, play a bit defensively at the start, weather the storm, and then ramp it up from there.

What they didn't count on was a turnover, a failed backcheck, an easy goal for Buffalo and then sensational goaltending again by Miller.

Rob Niedermayer found Jason Pominville on the doorstep for an easy tap in for the Sabres' lone goal and Miller made it stand up.

Jeff Carter lost the puck in the neutral zone and the puck came back into the Philadelphia end. The Flyers were outmuscled along the wall with Niedermayer shedding Carter to get into the left circle. Tyler Ennis beat Danny Syvret to the puck behind the net and fed Niedermayer, who suddenly had a 2-on-1 down low with Pominville and only Matt Carle between them.

Nik Zherdev was late getting back to Pominville and the pass was perfect for an easy goal that Brian Boucher had no chance to stop.

From there, it was all Miller, stopping all 32 Flyers shots he faced.

He did have some help from Tyler Myers, the 6-8 behemoth on the Buffalo defense, who stripped Daniel Carcillo from a sure goal in the first period and then got his stick on a shot by James van Riemsdyk ticketed for an empty net.

But Miller was impressive, cutting down angles and limiting the Flyers from getting many good looks at the net.

The best chance the Flyers were able to muster came in the second period when the fourth line was buzzing in the zone and Darroll Powe gathered a loose puck from a scrum only to ring his shot off the left post.

Late in the third period, Briere found himself alone in front of Miller and made a couple dekes to try to fool the goalie, but Miller made a superb glove save to keep the Flyers off the board.

"There's too much time to think sometimes," Briere said. "I was standing still, too. I couldn't really make a move because I had no speed. I couldn't go around him and I had to try to go through him."

Miller followed that up with a sprawling glove save on a shot that Mike Richards couldn't get all off because he was falling to the ice.

The Flyers had their comeback attempt made difficult though by a very suspect call made on Richards.

After chipping the puck from near the Buffalo bench, Richards turned his body to avoid a check from a hard-charging Patrick Kaleta.

In the process, Richards got his arm in the air and clipped Kaleta on the chin with his elbow. It was completely unintentional on the part of Richards, and was a defensive act, not aggressive.

While an argument can be made that it was worthy of a two-minute minor, especially since suspended Pittsburgh Penguin Chris Kunitz only received a two-minute minor for an intentional elbow to the head of Tampa's Simon Gagne in Game 3 of their playoff series, any notion that it was worthy of a five-minute major penalty would be outrageous.

And yet, that's what referee Francois St. Laurent called, sending many of the Flyers into a perplexed and incredulous rage.

The Flyers did a fine job killing off that penalty to start the third period, but seemed just a step slow afterward, and while they were able to get chances, they were just a tad off in hunting down rebounds.

Lost in all the hub-bub about the Richards penalty and Miller's heroics was another excellent performance by Brian Boucher, who kept the Flyers in the game with many dazzling saves of his own, stopping 28 Sabres shots.

But the tenor of the series remains based on if the Sabres are allowed to play their style of hockey -- as they were in Game 4, or if not, like Game 2 when they gave the Flyers 10 power play chances.

"They're allowed to get away with murder out there and every time (Dan) Carcillio is on the ice he gets called," Richards said. "It's frustrating, but we have to battle through it. It's a physical series and now we get to go home in front of our fans. It's going to be loud in there Friday night."